ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister Asad Umar has confirmed that the third wave of coronavirus pandemic has started in the country, attributing the rising number of cases to the virus’ UK strain.
“Yes, there is no doubt that the third wave has started. The phenomena that’s driving it is the spread of the UK strain,” the federal minister said while talking to a private news channel.
In response to a question regarding COVID-19 cases, Asad Umar informed that the uptick in infections was witnessed in districts where a large portion of the Pakistan British community lives.
“We asked National Institute of Health (NIH) to do genome sequencing and first we saw the UK strain in areas in north Pakistan, including Islamabad. After that, we also did genome sequencing for the rest of the country,” he added.
He added, “We reached the conclusion that the dominant strain right now is the UK strain.” The federal minister pointed out that the new strain of the coronavirus was more transmissible than the original strain from Wuhan.
“The most recent research reports suggested that its mortality rate is also higher,” he said, adding, “This is a really dangerous situation developing as of now and the same is happening in other parts of the region, including Bangladesh.”
Earlier today, it was reported that Pakistan’s COVID-19 tally crosses the 600,000 mark with 2,701 fresh cases. There are a total of 566,492 recoveries from the disease, while the number of deaths total 13,377.
